Flower of Scotland

Well goodness me. Time sure does fly when you are feeling well!

For those of you concerned because of my lengthy silence, please don't worry. I am doing my best to live my best life. I am working and looking after myself (well, I had been, unfortunately I am currently eating M&Ms and drinking coffee) - which involves eating vegetables, drinking water and taking time to exercise, ride horses, read and socialise. This does not give me much time to write.

Since I last sat down at my laptop I have been reflecting on ancestry, transgenerational trauma, the death of the Queen and horses. If I can tie all those things together in one blog post, I will be very impressed with myself.

I am 12% Scottish.

My forefathers and mothers came from far across the sea. All my grandparents, except for one, were born outside New Zealand. Two of my grandparents were born in Drvenik, Croatia and my Poppa was born in London. I am however, a fifth generation New Zealander via my grandmother, Jessie Davies, who was born in Auckland in 1905. Sadly, I never met Jessie. She died of cancer before I was born.

I am very familiar with my more recent immigrant past but I have been fascinated to learn about Jessie's family, particularly her grandmother, Mary McNair. Mary was born in Coromandel in 1843. Her parents, Peter and Jane, arrived on the first settlor ship to Auckland, The Duchess of Argyle, in 1842. Tragically, Mary's older sister, Margaret, died aboard the ship, aged only 2. Here is a link to information about the ship https://www.geni.com/projects/New-Zealand-Settler-Ships-Duchess-of-Argyle-1842/30144

My great great great grandparents, the McNairs, were born in Paisley, Scotland - hence the 12% Scottish.

I love Scotland. I love the big, open spaces, the lochs, the history and the light - but what I love the most is the bagpipes. Now I think it might hark back to pipe bands and Santa Parades but it was also part of my University life in Dunedin. When I was sick last year, we got a new neighbour, who is a bag piper. I enjoyed listening to him practice while I dozed. Without wanting to be too morbid, I am definitely having a piper at my send off. Who could fail to be moved by the lone piper at the Queen's funeral? It was beautiful. https://youtu.be/dhFjwz3zF5Y

And Skye Boat Song https://youtu.be/dlHmbT44Rl8 in the funeral procession.

I happen to share a passion for many of the same things as the Queen, namely the countryside, dogs, horses, a sense of humour and headscarves. I also like jewels and silly outfits. Much has been written and said about Her Majesty the Queen since she passed away last month but something said by her only daughter, Princess Anne, has stayed with me:

"If you live that rather restricted life, horses become a lot more important. I suspect because they do give an opportunity to take you right out of that zone."

There is something very special about the connection between a horse and its rider. There is nothing that makes me feel more alive than being in the countryside on a horse. I've been having weekly riding lessons since November last year and recently I felt things fall into place. The essence of it was to relax and go with the horse. It makes me happy that the Queen could escape from public life on horseback. She always rode without a hat - which is either foolhardy or a reflection on the level of trust between her and her horses (or both).

When I was isolating in the spare room with COVID a few weeks ago I delved a little further into my Scottish line and came across a great great great great great grandmother with the surname Auchincloss. A Google search of that name uncovered Jacqueline Kennedy's stepfather, Hugh Auchincloss, but even more remarkably Hugh Auchincloss Jr, who was part of a team that lead a study into the benefits of the modified radical mastectomy also known as Auchincloss' operation. I had that operation. For more information, follow this link https://www.healthline.com/health/modified-radical-mastectomy Before that study women routinely lost their chest muscles as well as their breast. Instead of the neat scar I have, women were left looking like they had been mauled by wild animals. Auchincloss is not a common name, so those Auchicloss gentlemen are probably related to me. Thank you Hugh Auchincloss Jr. I am grateful to have my neat scar and (irradiated) chest muscles.

I am delighted to report that I have also recovered enough cognitive ability to indulge another of my great passions: reading fiction. I have been making up for lost time. During treatment I discovered audiobooks. They kept me company in the middle of the night when the steroids I was on kept me awake. This means I can now have 2 books on the go at once: a paper book and an audiobook to listen to on my excruciating long commutes and when I’m out walking. Recently I have read and loved:

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

Becoming by Michelle Obama

Rachel’s Holiday (I reread because a sequel has been more recently published) by Marian Keyes

Again, Rachel by Marian Keyes

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller

It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Daisy Jones and The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Book Lovers by Emily Henry

You and Me on Vacation by Emily Henry

All the Light we Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (The writing was absolutely sublime. Sometimes I derive great pleasure from the way sentences are put together and I did not want this book to end. I think it is a masterpiece.)

Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Such has been my enthusiasm for reading I have started a book club at work. I have never been in a book club before, but it felt like such a waste to read all those amazing stories and not be able to talk about them. I picked our first book club book "The Island of Missing Trees" by Elif Shafak. What a beautiful book. A love story set against the civil war in Cyprus. One of its characters is a fig tree and one of its themes is transgenerational trauma. Transgenerational trauma is when the experiences of parents affect the development of their children and sometimes their grandchildren. It can show up biologically, socially, mentally or emotionally. Which conveniently loops me back to my grandmother Jessie and the McNairs. There is no doubt in my mind that my family has transgenerational trauma. My ancestors lived hard lives and lost a lot of children. That pain profoundly hurt the parents of those children and has seeped down through the generations.

If you are here to catch up on my cancer journey - sorry to have kept you! In July, I started taking an unfunded (in New Zealand) cancer drug called neratinib. The drug was mentioned by my oncologist at our very first meeting in June 2021, but we did not dwell on it because it was to come after a year of herceptin and perjeta.

My oncologist was involved in the clinical trials for the drug. It has excellent results for disease free survival in respect of my particular triple positive breast cancer. Here is a link to the trial findings https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33183970/

The HER+ aspect of my breast cancer is aggressive and it is more likely to metastasize (reoccur elsewhere in the body) whereby it becomes terminal. My treatment has therefore been focused on minimising the risk of reoccurrence. After the conclusion of my six rounds of chemo and my 17 rounds of monoclonal antibodies (Herceptin and Perjeta) I now take 6 tablets with my breakfast for 12 months. It is fair to say that the first few weeks taking neratinib were very unpleasant and for the first time I did wonder if I could do it. I am pleased to report that once my prophylactic diarrhea medication dosage was increased things improved dramatically.

My other news is that I have reconstruction surgery scheduled for 9 May 2023. I have had a CT scan of my abdomen so my plastic surgeon can identify which blood supply to take from there (with my tummy fat) and reconnect it to a blood supply in my chest. The surgery is called DIEP flap surgery and following is detail about the surgery taken from my surgeon's website https://smwh.co.nz/breast-cancer/breast-reconstruction/diep-flap-reconstruction/ What I like about the surgery is that they open up my scar (so I won't have any additional chest scarring), it uses my own body tissue, I can grow my tummy for the next 7 months, I get a tummy tuck and then later my surgeon will fat graft to perfect the new boob (so hopefully they'll take that fat out of my thighs).

I think I managed to incorporate ancestry, transgenerational trauma, the death of the Queen and horses into this piece. I am feeling a bit smug as a result. Before I go off on another tangent, I shall leave you with two quotes that very eloquently express Princess Anne's sentiment:

In riding a horse, we borrow freedom - Helen Thompson

To ride a horse is to fly without wings - Anonymous